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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26390368">Never Gently Into Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetTiramisu/pseuds/SweetTiramisu'>SweetTiramisu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travel Ruin-It</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:42:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26390368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetTiramisu/pseuds/SweetTiramisu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which tired, pragmatic Ahsoka gets a chance to enter the past in the aftermath of Alderaan’s destruction. Her goal? Kill Anakin Skywalker before he Falls. Then improvise.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Never Gently Into Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello and welcome! This story idea basically would not leave me alone since the Clone Wars finale came out, so I finally decided to just write it already. This is my first Star Wars fanfiction ever (though I do have another one in the works that is a bit more serious) and I'm still getting a feel for the characters, so the characterization may be off. We'll see! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It began, as many things do, with the end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It began with a desolation Ahsoka had never expected. The screams of a planet woke her from sleep, reverberating for a moment in the force. She jolted out of bed, reaching for her lightsabers, but nothing could be done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alderaan was already gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Ahsoka knew with the utmost certainty that Anakin, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>Darth Vader </span>
  </em>
  <span>had ordered its destruction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stood, unable to sleep so filled with shock, and wandered into the cockpit of her little ship. The teal light of hyperspace brushed against her face and she wished, defeated, for a mug of caf in her hands. But nothing could help her now. Ahsoka flopped into the pilot’s seat, clutching at her aching head. Shock slipped into grief. Ahsoka willed herself to cry, but had run out of tears long ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her master was responsible for this. Her </span>
  <em>
    <span>master, </span>
  </em>
  <span>whose teachings had carried her thus far.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Take heart, little one, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thought. There was nothing to comfort herself with. Ahsoka sighed. The same man that had refused to give up on her long ago had tossed a planet and all its people to the side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took one small, final moment of grief. Then came the rage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For one small moment, she considered falling. Considered allowing the pain to consume her down to the bone and bleed her blades until they returned to the crimson color she had found them in. She imagined returning to Vader. Perhaps she would join him. Perhaps she would kill him. She hadn’t decided yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ahsoka felt old. She took one last glance out the transparisteel, stood, and returned to her bed. Falling to the dark side? Anakin making the mistake of falling had brought them to this outcome in the first place. Was it her exhaustion or her feelings clouding her judgement? Ahsoka lay in her bed and let sleep take her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She woke up shrouded in her white cloak surrounded by a world of darkness. An empty void stretched out luminous before her. Ahsoka sat upon a bridge of white, her lightsabers on her hips, her disk-topped staff in her hands. She recognized this place: the world between worlds. She had been here once before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>From underneath her pale hood, she could just make out the road before her. It only went one direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka stood, cocking her head. She stepped as though to follow the path. Something before her glimmered, iridescent. Ahsoka lifted her hand, pressing it against what felt like a barrier. The thin film buckled easily beneath her palm; it would be nothing to push through it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, she saw her own reflection before her. Then she stepped through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The force twisted and pulled. Her hand emerged from the film on both ends of it. She stared into her own reflection, breathed deep, and took a step. And a woman and her mirror image appeared on opposite sides. Ahsoka glanced over her shoulder and saw herself staring back from the opposite side of the barrier. She moved her hand, as though to wave. Her reflection cocked her head, wondering. Ah.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wherever she was going, there was no returning. One Ahsoka to remain, and one to leave. She had </span>
  <em>
    <span>split.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka waved goodbye to herself, turned, and followed where the road led. She walked for what felt like hours entirely alone, grateful for her staff. Worlds glimmered white in the distance, the force echoing heavy in her mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The path ended in a gate. She had looked through one before, had watched Kanan die and comforted Ezra. There had been a choice, then. Here there was nowhere else to go but forwards or down, </span>
  <em>
    <span>down </span>
  </em>
  <span>into an ambivalent depth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka gazed into the disk before her. It was that or fade to nothingness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before her stood the hangar of a massive ship. Ahsoka bit her lip. There was her old flyer, nestled among the others. Clones darted back and forth across the floor, chatting amongst each other and working hard to fix their ships. They did not know what fates awaited them. There was Rex, young and noble. There was Fives, too. Echo. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>vode </span>
  </em>
  <span>that had helped to raise her, only half-touched by future tragedies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka allowed herself a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then her gaze drifted. She saw herself, first. Small and in red and still able to smile, somehow. Then beside her, towering tall, was Anakin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was young, younger than she was now, with a brilliant smile on his face and an awkwardness to his shoulders that Vader had long destroyed. He hadn’t fallen, not yet. She could feel him in the force, a teetering, glowing sun, its doorstep yet to be darkened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A Jedi, Ahsoka thought, might have looked into their past and spied a chance to save him. A Jedi might have tried to pull him to the light, to fix what was broken, to rescue him from himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka was no Jedi.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thought once more of Alderaan, of Bail, of her brothers who hadn't had a choice. She thought about a lone man in a desert, about a child missing a master </span>
  <em>
    <span>(another Jedi dead, another Jedi to leave her alone) </span>
  </em>
  <span>on a planet with twin moons, and finally about her own, personal tragedies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka was just so </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hands flew to her lightsabers. She would have one chance to do this. One moment to land and </span>
  <em>
    <span>strike </span>
  </em>
  <span>and leave no life behind. A Dark idea, but a necessary one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka looked once more time over her shoulder and saw only emptiness. No Morai, no Ezra, nobody at all. Not even the path she had taken to get here. There was no turning back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ahsoka took a deep breath and jumped, her sabers burning a putrid white, her cloak a rotting flag behind her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gate curled around her like a bubble of soap and then popped, leaving only an empty hole in the world between worlds.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Dang I wonder how this is going to go.</p><p>The second chapter is in the works, though with a rigorous college semester beginning and an original novel on my hands I don't know how long it'll take. I can't imagine this story will be more than three chapters anyway, but I suppose we'll find out together where this goes.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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